Germany, Austria, Denmark, 2 Other EU States Plan First Deportation Centre in Africa for 2027
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- Greece's Migration Minister confirmed the first return hub is set to open in the second half of 2027, with an unnamed African country chosen as the location
- The plan involves open facilities, not sealed detention centres, with EU member states retaining legal responsibility over transferred individuals
- The initiative draws on new EU return legislation agreed in June 2026, but critics including Amnesty International and Doctors Without Borders have raised serious concerns
Legit.ng journalist Adekunle Dada has over eight years of experience covering metro, government policy, and international issues
A coalition of five European Union member states — Greece, Germany, Austria, Denmark and the Netherlands — has announced plans to open the first so-called "return hub" in an African country by the second half of 2027.
The five countries are targeting migrants whose asylum applications have been rejected by EU courts.
Source: Twitter
Greece's Minister of Migration, Thanos Plevris, revealed the timeline during an interview with Greek television channel ANT1.
As reported by DW, Plevris said the launch would coincide with Greece taking over the EU Council Presidency.
Plevris confirmed that an African host country had been selected but declined to name it. Diplomatic circles and EU-close media outlets have repeatedly cited Rwanda or Uganda as possible locations, though neither has been officially confirmed.
What the return hubs will look like
Plevris was clear that these facilities would not function as closed detention centres.
"We are not talking about centres in the sense that someone whose asylum application is rejected is sent to a closed facility in a third country," he said
He described them instead as open transit facilities used while final return arrangements to a migrant's home country are being organised.
Crucially, legal responsibility for transferred individuals will remain with the five EU member states rather than being handed over to the African partner country — a design choice intended to prevent human rights litigation.
The project will be fully financed by the group of five. International bodies such as the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) are expected to monitor operations to ensure compliance with international law and human rights standards.
Why previous models failed
The new initiative comes after a series of high-profile failures by individual European governments attempting similar schemes.
The United Kingdom spent £715 million before its Rwanda deportation plan was struck down by the British Supreme Court in 2024.
The court found that asylum seekers sent to Rwanda risked being returned to countries where they could face persecution.
Only four people had voluntarily relocated to Rwanda during the entire programme.
Italy's arrangement with Albania, operational since 2024, ran into immediate legal obstacles when Italian courts blocked relocations, ruling that countries such as Bangladesh and Egypt could not be blanket-classified as safe.
Italy later converted one Albanian facility into a deportation centre for definitively rejected cases, with projected costs exceeding €670 million by 2028.
Denmark halted its own separate negotiations with Rwanda in early 2023 after the European Commission and human rights groups raised sharp objections.
New legal basis underpins the effort.
The group of five says revised EU asylum rules now allow transfers to third countries without requiring a migrant to have a personal prior connection there, such as family ties or language.
The EU Return Regulation, agreed politically by the Council and European Parliament on June 17, 2026, also provides a common legal framework, though it had not yet been formally adopted at the time of the announcement.
Organisations including Amnesty International and Doctors Without Borders remain sceptical, warning that independent oversight, legal representation and medical care cannot be fully guaranteed in such hubs.
They warned that past experience shows the cost is steep while the number of people actually returned tends to be small.
Source: Legit.ng
